With Love, Vincent
by algie888
Summary: He used to hate them, the corpses that sat in the coffin-like vase. But now he understood.


**With Love, Vincent**  
><strong>Summary: He used to hate them, the corpses that sat in the coffin like vase. But now he understood.<strong>  
>He looked up, frowning at the collection of flowers that sat in his vase. He used to not like them - he used to hate them. But now he understood.<p>

Before, sunflowers had seemed so disgusting. Half alive, half dead, like arrogant corpses lifting their heads to the sun. It seemed ridiculous to like them. The yellow hurt his eyes, the dark blacks in the middle like the moss that grew on gravestones. He despaired when he saw them being sold in the market place, a pretty ribbon around the stalks, and the bottoms drowned in cold water. _Waste of water,_ was what he said every time he passed.

The paint brush moved slowly, with intense feeling and calculation behind each slash of paint across the canvas. He studied the flowers, flicking his wrist to move the petals into order. Everything had a purpose. Everything had its reason.

And for Vincent, that reason was Amy.

Even if he hated the way they looked, the way they smelled, the way his skin crawled every time he so much glanced at one. And here he was, painting the damn things.

He grimaced in disgust, adding a fleck of light to the bottom of the vase. Awful. A splat of yellow swirled into an odd shape. Horrible. That's what the people in the town said if ever he attempted to sell his wares.  
>The flowers were wilting under the hot sun, and Vincent added red. The bottom ones lost petals, so Vincent dashed a beam of light. Everything deserved a chance in the spotlight.<p>

Vincent understood. He knew what it was like to be under appreciated. To be shunned. And he saw a kindred spirit in that bottom sunflower - the one that turned its head away. That flower had the light hitting it perfectly. It had so much potential. But it thought it was unwanted. Unloved

Vincent blinked, shaking his head. This was not the time for poetry. He looked over the vase, counting an odd number of eleven flowers.

The bottom one was alone. It needed a companion.

So, over the already painted canvas, he sketched in a rough drawing of the centre flower. This one stood sentry over his flower, guarding it. This was Amy.

He painted wildly now, in a blind fury with slashes of light across the page. The vase was blue, but he painted it yellow. The room was a motley green, but he made it beige. No sad colours. He wouldn't want Amy to think of him as sad.

Vincent stopped, standing back to look at it. He licked his lips, as he walked a few feet away, unsure of his own reaction. What would it look like...?

His mouth curled in disgust, and Vincent threw his brush to the floor, where the dirt stuck to the oily yellow paint. The painting - if you could call it that - looked like a collection of flower-corpses, all stuck into a coffin-like vase in the centre.

He growled in frustration, and gripped the canvas in his hands, ready to throw it onto the dusty floor in a fit of rage. Vincent lifted it over his head, his fingers digging crescents into the linen, leaving craters into the paint. Good riddance. A world should never have to see another Vincent Van Gogh.

Another... He stopped, freezing mid action. That museum of art - the Musee D'Orsay. Filled with galleries of fine artists and sculptures. And him. That museum had his art - a whole gallery dedicated to his work.  
>Vincent lowered himself back into his seat slowly, his fingers ghosting over the fallen brush. Even if he were scorned, even if he were unloved, there were people who liked his work. It might have taken over one hundred years, but they thought he was good. Brilliant. Amazing.<p>

He picked up the brush, determination burning in his eyes like never before. The painting wasn't so much of flowers now. It was of light.

He painting flashes of yellow and white across the canvas, showing where the sun dappled the small vase. But not just physical light. He pained metaphorical light, too.

He painted Amy into his art. As a flash of red, or a hint of her blue coat. The shape of her eye formed the petals, the curve of her smile over the rim of the vase. It was warm, like her. But he painted loss, too. Because she cried when she knew him. She cried silently - like she couldn't stop. Vincent couldn't bear to watch her cry, but without that impossible sadness, she wasn't Amy.

And the Doctor. He was in the painting as well. But not like Amy's testimony. He was hidden in the shadow on the edge of the painting, fluttering on the edges. Vincent painted delicately now, not even sure what would happen if he went so much as a stroke out of place. Finally it emerged from the dark, but only if you knew what you wee looking for. An eye that stared out from the shadows, so old and so sad. So sorry.

Vincent shook his head, amazed at his own painting. He peered at the canvas, tearing at it with his eyes to find that eye. Gone. Maybe he really was mad.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, breathing in the stuffy air. It was getting dark, but the nights were still as warm as a summer's day. Placing his brush down delicately, Vincent decided to take a break from the painting.  
>Had it all been a dream? The Doctor and Amy? Had he imagined the dark blue box with a different world on the inside<p>

Vincent looked back at his canvas, the light from the window a faded pink in the dusky light. Were they all a dream? Maybe. Would he keep painting? Vincent stopped, biting his bottom lip indecisively.  
>Yes. Even if all those paintings in the Musee D'Orsay were dreamt up by his imagination, he thought they were real. And that's all that mattered.<p>

Vincent walked back to his stool, wincing as he sat onto the hard wood. He plucked the brush from where it lay on the edge of his canvas, and pressed it down into the black paint on the palette. Just the final touched of black on the edges of the sunflowers.

Vincent hated using the colour black. It was so uncharacteristic, so strict. The lines that defined 'black' were harsh and cruel. A midnight blue for a night sky, or shades of grey in the shadows. Not black. But for Amy - and for only Amy - did he use the colour black. Because black had the ability to be so sad, yet so happy at the same time.

People look at black and they think of death, or illness, or destruction. But black was not like that. Black was so much more. It was filled with so much more emotion than any other colour. The only colour with the ability to portray great sadness and joy at the same time. It was a melting pot of colour and feelings in a single dash. Amy had taught him to look at the world differently. To look at emotion differently.

Vincent groaned when he realised he had miscalculated the amount of paint needed on the painting. He had a rather large amount of black left, even though he had only used the colour sparingly and in very few places. Paint was expensive - black paint especially. And to waste it would be a sin. Vincent worked with tube paint, so to even _think _about trying to put it back in would be ridiculous.

His face lit up as he realised what to do. Vincent dipped his smallest brush into the black paint, the dark colour streaming across the canvas like a river down a mountain.

He stepped back to admire his handiwork. Not bad.

He packed up his paints, and pushed the easel into the corner of his room. Peaking out of the window, Vincent smiled. The sky was starry, almost begging to be painted. But later. He was almost out of yellow.  
>Vincent placed the painting on the window ledge to dry. <p>

"Good night, Amy."

_With love, Vincent._


End file.
